Role Of The Scrum Master In Capstone Projects

Abstract: Using Scrum as the central process framework for capstone project courses has shown to be beneficial for the learning of the students. However, these capstone project courses rarely focus on teaching students how to become a Scrum Master and do not empower them to assume the role of the Scrum Master. As a consequence, not much is known on the responsibilities that are actually assumed by those few students assuming the role of the Scrum Master in capstone project courses. Moreover, there is not much known about how these students should be taught in order to become a proficient Scrum Master. In this thesis, a case study was carried out in the Software Project 3 course held at Aalto University. The Software Project 3 course is one of the few capstone project courses that allows the students to assume the role of the Scrum Master and supports student learning through complementary teaching methods. This thesis aimed to identify the responsibilities assumed by the Scrum Master in capstone projects, and how successfully the Scrum Master contributed to the teamwork and team effectiveness of the Development Team. In addition, this study attempted to assess the contribution of complementary teaching methods, employed in the Software Project 3 course, to the learning of the students on how to become a proficient Scrum Master. This study also aimed to identify the lessons learnt by the students who assumed the role of the Scrum Master in the Software Project 3 course. In this study, the data was collected through interviews with the Scrum Masters, surveys targeted at both Scrum Masters and Developers, as well as data collected from the course content and artifacts submitted by the teams for the project reviews. They were able to successfully promote teamwork and team effectiveness within the Development Team. In addition, The results of this study show that the students, who acted as a Scrum Master, assumed all the responsibilities of the Scrum Master defined in the Scrum Guide However, in this capstone project course, these students also undertook additional responsibilities that are not explicitly mentioned in the Scrum Guide or should have been assumed by the Development Team or Product Owner. Assessment of the complementary teaching methods shows that the two-day Certified Scrum Master course and the Scrum Game, were highly valued by most of the students who felt that these two teaching methods contributed to their learning on how to become a Scrum Master. Coaching was perceived to contribute positively to the quality of the project. However, the opinion about coaching was not shared by all the students. Experience Exchange Sessions were deemed to contribute little to the learning of students. Although students faced several difficulties throughout the project that hindered the implementation of Scrum, all of them undertook the role of the Scrum Master successfully and learnt how to promote and support Scrum in their teams